Alibaba Invests $120 Million In A Gaming Company That's Now Valued At $1 Billion

Thursday

Jul 31, 2014 at 8:56 PM

Karyne Levy

Mobile gaming company Kabam announced on Thursday that it is receiving an investment of $120 million from Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba.

That brings Kabam's valuation up to $1 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“Truly successful games companies have to be globally successful,” said Kabam CEO Kevin Chou in a statement. “This strategic collaboration with Alibaba provides Kabam the resources, infrastructure and distribution to help bring our current and future durable franchise games to China and elsewhere in Asia and make an immediate impact.”

The deal was announced at the ChinaJoy Expo in Shanghai, a digital entertainment expo, which brings in around 180,000 people.

Kabam will publish its mobile games in China using Alibaba's mobile applications.

The Asian game market has already played a big role in Kabam's success. It opened an office in Beijing four years ago, where it developed some of its key titles, including "The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth" and "Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North." Each of those games has generated more than $100 million in revenue.

In May it announced a partnership with Lionsgate to produce a mobile game based on "The Hunger Games" films.

This isn't the only recent billion-company Alibaba has been involved with. On Wednesday, several outlets reported that the Chinese ecommerce site was looking to invest in Snapchat at a $10 billion valuation. But according to several sources who spoke with Business Insider, that deal is "highly unlikely."

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SEE ALSO: It's 'highly unlikely' Snapchat will raise a boatload of money from Alibaba

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